I wonder if that success seminars recipe can be explained by prospect theory.

I do not think prospect theory is a real alternative outside homo economicus. I would imagine that if you have a factory and take a gamble that will assign you some random number of employees that you’ll be forced to higher. Obviously your utility function will be S shapes like the utility function in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_theory . In fact, I would think it’ll be somewhat sinusoidal.

If you get too many employee, your factory cannot accommodate them all and it’s actually bad. If you get too little employee, you might as well just close the factory and start another business. So that’s explain why utility function of losses flatten out when loses are too much and flatten out too when gain is too much. We only gain stuff along area that we expect and prepare for.

And yes, your expectation, will affect the size of your factory.

But this lead to another question.

In most NLP business seminar, I am told that if I want to be rich I need to change my expectation. We are told to imagine a world where we are way richer.

I wonder if the S shape in utility function can mathematically explain why we will move toward our expectation?

If that’s the case, then we would expect a bump in utility function near our expectation. No we don’t. We see a stiff slope, not a bump, in utility function near our expectation. I suppose the flattening of utility function in the max region looks like bumps but I am still missing this. I draw a graph in excel but I think it’s best to ask real pro.

Basically I want to know how:
1. Changing my expectation change my utility function. Imagining that I own a yach with tons of hot babes for example, will lower the marginal increase of my utility function on the flat lost side I suppose.
2. Changing my utility function makes me richer or gives me higher slope, motivates me to work harder, or make me take more risk or what, that somehow it’ll make richer?

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Notice that increasing my expectation (imagining that yachs) will move the center of the S to the right. Now I am on the flat side of the curve and hence have less incentive to work.

Another thing NLP taught is that beliefs are self fullfiling. This one is right by Nash Equilibrium. Basically I just want math explanation for “common wisdom”

I am not going to argue whether such is morally right or wrong. However, the idea itself, have huge problemThere are a few problem with normative questions in economy. Basically due to these issues, normative questions will always be subjective. Many will think badly on what you think is good.

1. The obvious problem is that different humans have different taste. This may seem to be the main problem for purely theoretical economists. However, it’s actually the least of our problem. Because money is interchangeable, we can, to certain extend, compare people’s utility function even on those things that’s not easily tradable, like lives, reproductive success, preventing poor’s rebellion, voters preferences (and ignorance) etc. We can compute their marginal rate of substitution between a certain outcome and say having another dollar.

2. Huge amount of people’s utility function revolves around games that’s almost “zero sum”. Humans simply want others to suffer. Power, for example. If I have a power to choose cheese or chocolate, chocolate factory has no power to decide that. It’s mutually exclusive. We probably have no problem when the issue is cheese and chocolate. We’ll get back to that later. In purely zero sum game, there can be no optimum. Not in pareto optimal sense, not in any sense.

3. Hypocrisy. Humans’ utility function is moderately complex. It’s not too complex to understand. However, the true utility function of typical humans is pretty politically incorrect. Hence most humans have totally false idea of what humans want. If we construct humans’ utility function objectively based on what people actually choose, the result will be way different than what most people think.

4. Pareto optimal is a very strict topic. There can be no change of policy where not even one person is made worst of out of 200 million. C’mon. However, if we can make 51% people better off and still improve the amount of GDP, that may worth examining. Something along citizen dividend advocated by Georgian libertarians may fit that. Perhaps something less strict than pareto but “reasonable” would help a lot. I don’t know what. Proper alignments between individuals’ utility function and GDP perhaps? Increasing market value of citizenship if those citizenship is tradeable. Who knows?

5. Results of evolutionary psychology says that humans are not even aware what he wants and why he want it. Humans have many hidden motives that not even the actor is rationally aware off. So people may honestly feel or think that he is unselfishly trying to help others while all he/she really wants is to just max out his reproductive success. People may not be perfectly aware of their utility function or their own intent. For example, a person may truly intent to pay his loan or come to his office on time. We know, however, he won’t. As usual, intents, incentives, and results are far more closely correlated than what most people like to believe. Many would claim that Caesar Borgia and Hitler is evil. Yet we know that most humans would have done the same thing and is still doing the same thing under similar circumstances.

6. Our model of what humans’ utility function is too politically correct. Humans’ true utility function, envy, bigotry, power seeking, psychopathy, apathy, selfish, is very politically incorrect, and hence not discussed. If someone stab you in the back, take your wallet, and latter claim that he’s trying to altruistically perform apendix operation on you, is it science what his true motives are? Of course. We know it isn’t true. Many situation is like that. We know what people’s real motives are. It’s just that it’s so politically incorrect we don’t make the obvious deduction. As usual, result (which is disprovable), incentive (which is also disproveable), and some comparison with other’ mammals’ behavior (which is disprovable), and reproductive success analysis of past successful ancestors (which is disprovable), can give pretty good guide that the guy is just a psychopath that want to kill you so he can take your wallet. The same way most laws against consensual acts can be analyzed the same way but people don’t bother

I’ll give you a sample. Say one guy want food. Then we tax the rich to buy food for the poor. Standard economy issue will discuss whether the small sacrifice paid by Bill Gates justify the increased happiness of the hungry.

However, most problem is way out of the box of that thinking. Often, scarcity is not even the issue at all. Many, instead of wanting food, want porn and ganja. The other wants to prohibit it. So you see any normative answer will be seen as “wrong” by at least one side. It’s inherently subjective.

Thinking whether Bill’s tax rate should be 2% or 3% is penny wise pound folly. Some may think that people like Bill Gates can easily attract thousands of women and make many kids, effectively ensuring more kids have rich smart dad, hence reducing any need of welfare in the first place. But this aspect is not talked about because it’s politically incorrect. Again, I am not saying it’s right or wrong. I don’t know all the political and economic implication of this. I know that people don’t like discussing it.

What about if deep inside, socialists demand higher income tax because they don’t want you to be rich? How do we come up with something both you and socialists be happy with?

Also like all people, economists want to stay politically correct.

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I’ll give you a sample of hidden utility function. Say, a religious leader says that you have to eat halal food (actual story from Indonesia). We would think that the interest of the religious leader is benign. Ah, he wants people to be more pious. Any experience politicians will see the true issue. The religious leaders want power to decide what you can eat.

Obviously, many people wouldn’t want that. Here, an almost zero sum game is masked into an illusion of cooperative game. “I want to run your life so I can control you and increase my pay” is turned into “I want to help you go to heaven.” Most people don’t see it through, except foreigners. I think we can verify that non secular countries have higher cost of halal/kosher certificate.

I pick a religious sample precisely because US is not a religious country. Hence, my sample is not politically incorrect here.

Due to zero sum aspects of some of our lives, huge amount of unhappiness, if we can call that now, does not happen due to scarcity or lack of redistribution of wealth at all.

Porn is an obvious sample. There is an abundance of porn. However, showing porn to minor is illegal. There are many pressures to get rid porn from the market. Recently somebody got 20 years in prison for watching porn.

Ganja. Again, ganja can be produced cheaply. However, people that want to control what you can smoke is unhappy if you smoke. Here your utility function is in direct conflict with them. As usual it’s masked into something cooperative. Government, for example, argued that ganja is dangerous and hence look as if they care about you.

Does ganja improve your utility function? Well, if it’s legal, would you buy it? See. People’s actual utility function has scientific “bite”. We know that many would do.

Prostitution and sugar babies are another game.

As I argue elsewhere, microeconomics explains the behavior of the singular and unitary actor. It’s not about men and women; in fact, there are no men and women in microeconomics. There are only (singular and unitary) actors. In the words of Levitt and Dubner themselves, “If, for instance, you added up all the women and men on the planet, you would find that, on average, the typical adult human being has one breast and one testicle—and yet how many people fit that description?” Microeconomics is about how the actor with one breast and one testicle behaves. Evolutionary psychology is about how women with two breasts are completely, fundamentally, and irreconcilably different from men with two testicles, because, in large part, women have breasts and men have testicles. It’s the breasts and testicles that make them behave differently

Prostitute is NOT cheap. Beautiful women can earn $5500 per hour as prostitutes as can be seen here: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hmXLonSBMNvhOli00jFF0fK65pSw.

Typical women will earn more money as sugar babies than as a wife. Matt Ridley, for example, argued that the true reason why polygamy is prohibited is not to protect women but to protect men. Anti-polygamy laws can easily be circumvented if prostitution is illegal. So it’s natural to expect many women would choose the sugar babies path. Yet, most people think that somehow all those women are victims, etc.

So here we have a case where people’s perception of their utility function is way off than people’s actual utility function. Most people believe that no women would ever want to be a prostitute. The truth is many would do if it’s legal.

So you can get a picture of how wrong your utility function to reality let me show you a simple analysis.

Imagine if government prohibit ganja by a 1 cent fine. We can all agree that ganja is effectively legal. Now government can use many different words to describe the action. Government can say it’s a 1 cent fine, tax, punishment, prohibition. However, we see that if the “penalty” is the small anyway, it’s effectively fine. It’s not what it calls. It’s the actual increase cost that often heavily affects humans’ utility function.

So let’s for simplicity sake, we see the world without differentiating tax and fine. Let’s call them artificial costs. We can also include things like jail for our analysis. Jail is not the same with tax. However, it has some monetary equivalent. There is a certain amount of money that people are willing to pay to avoid jail. That amount of money will reflect his utility function and directly comparable with other men.

Let’s count subsidy, aids, government programs, incentive, as “artificially decreased costs.” If some people got subsidy, we can count those who don’t to bear some “artificially increased costs” too relative to those who got the subsidy.

Say government tax green skin people $1k. Then government is racist. Imagine if government tax everyone $1k, and then give refund to anyone that’s not green. Everyone can verify that the 2 acts are equivalent right? Here, we can say that green people suffer “artificially increased costs.”

In ancient time, Naz, artificially increased cost of gene pool survival for the jews. Jews that are surviving in the gene pool are killed. Here, killing has a monetary equivalent. The money equivalent of getting killed is the “artificially increased costs.”

The amount of “artificially increased costs” Nazi inflicted on jews must be quite significant because most jews did end up death. If it’s only 1 cents or equivalent to 1 cent, I am sure 90% of jews must have survived holocausts.

After Nazi killed the jews, Nazi redistribute jewish wealth. Well, they’re getting extinct anyway so they didn’t need the money right? I am not saying its right or wrong. I am just saying it’s what the Nazi did.

In contemporary time, social democrats artificially increase cost of gene pool survival for rich smart diligent attractive capitalists (rsdac). Rich men that want to survive in the gene pool face an artificially inflated cost of alimony risk, child support, and so on and so on. All those are set proportional to men’s wealth. Monogamy is also more costly for men most capable to attract females. Also, richer males are less likely to be benefited by public schools. All those are artificially increased costs. Not to mention income tax that’s also proportional to men’s income.

The amount of “artificially increased costs” government inflicted on capitalists must be quite significant because the rich actually ended up making fewer kids than the poor.

Perhaps, if we want to follow the spirit of utility function, we can embrace free trade or free trade like mechanism.

Say I value my watch for 1000 usd. Say you value it by 2000usd. Ah there is inefficiency. This will solve by itself by me selling the watch to you for 1500 usd. I do not know what your actual utility function. However, we know that derivative of U with respect to watch for me is 1000 times the derivative of U with respect to usd. For you, the derivative is 2000 times the derivative for dollar. So your utility function for watch is steeper on “watch” direction. We know that. To be frank, because every change is a change from status quo, all we need to know is those derivatives anyway rather than utility functions. And we can know that.

This is the basic of pareto optimal text book sample. Perhaps we can extend that to something the market does not take care of.

Many things are not directly tradable. But we can measure their marginal rate of substitution toward dollar nevertheless.

If you go to abortion clinic, we know the poor do not value reproductive success by much. If we go to fertility clinic, we know that the rich value reproductive success by far more.

A world where the poor get more money and the rich make more kids may make both better off. Perhaps, government can sell “reproductive licenses” and use the money for citizen dividends?

Another approach will be to see government as businesses and citizens as stock holders. We’re going there. So anyone that make more kids will have to buy citizenships and while those who are childless can sell his right to inherit that citizenship for cash. Perhaps some people will get a discount for staying in countries because of voters’ preference for hanging out with those they’re familiar?

Straight forward redistribution of wealth without something in return for the rich will simply demotivate people from becoming rich. That will simply hurt everyone.

Recently I was blocked by an angry liberal hotties because she thinks I think all girls are hos. Well, not all, of course, only the pretty ones.

I think the girl is arrogant.

The ho is arrogant. Yea, if I can be a prostitute, if there are 20 young hot busty thin rich smart young babes that want to support me as sugar babies, I would be in heaven. But alas I am male. So I got to go with plan B and be a businessman. hiks hiks.

She, on the other hand, got 20 young, big cocked, rich smart young men, that would love to support her as sugar babies and she think I am demeaning her for thinking that women are prostitute? Tell those soldiers risking their life in afghanistan what they would do if they get hired by Britney Spears for fucking and see how many switch job.

Every time someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always told them that I wanted to be a businessman. Actually, being a businessman is only a plan B.

Clayton – apparently he’s not actually arguing that most people are psychopaths, but rather that the results of their actions are akin to those of psychopaths.

That is correct. I mean David for example, killed 100 palestines to collect the foreskins. War and corruption can be thought of as psychopathy too. Yet 99% of politicians would do it if they can get away with it. Genocide, war, socialism, big government, are a reflection of voters’ effective psychopathy. In fact, a person doesn’t have to be a psychopath to act as a psychopath. If responsible productive acts like making honest money are punished and unproductivity is rewarded, humans are “forced” to be psycophats.

Say you want to be a responsible husband. Get rich first then get laid. Chance is you pay huge income tax. After that you have to keep paying lifetime alimony and child support to kids that’s not even yours. The amount is set proportional to man’s wealth. If you just breed and knock up babes like irresponsible studs, you get rewarded and government would pay for those. What men would not be a psychopath in their sexual life? Losers… In fact, I think being a psychopath is a normal, natural, or even moral answer to injustice. Of course, once the world is just, it’s to your best interest to be productive.

However, the idea that humans are indeed actually psychopaths may not be too wrong either.

As someone point out, all those paths are always minority. But they’re not minority because people are not like them. They are minority because social illness is unnaturally defined so that the majority is not categorized as ill.

Delusion for example, should include religions. However, delusional is defined in a way that popular religions don’t count.

The same way most humans share the same traits with most psychopaths. Most humans are selfish. Most humans will choose an act that profit him $100 even if that means many others lose $1000000. Most humans will just justify that immoral acts rather than stop doing it if incentive is high enough. Most strangers would renege on their contracts if they will get away with it. But the definition of psychopaths are carefully defined not to include most people even though most people would do the same thing a psychopath would do under most circumstances.

Look at definition of exploitation for example. It can naturally mean all non consensual interaction or it can naturally mean all taking advantage of other people, consensual or not. Feminazis carefully define exploitation to mean women having sex to paying males, irrelevant of consent or not. This very unnatural definition makes arguments very difficult.

Imagine a world without religion and God. Imagine a world without morality? Obviously most of us are not crazy enough to insist that we have to follow religious dogma even on games.

How things would be?

Well, MMO like tribal wars teach us that.

It turns out, morality evolve by it self. It’s quite difference than normal morality we are used to. But again, somehow it’s closer to the reality.

For example, if you get beaten up by some people in tribal wars, you are the “bad guy” for being weak. Other tribe will refuse your entry.

If you just build troops and play nice, people will look at you in disdain. It’s when you actually screw others, people respect and fear you.

You are loyal to your tribe. But the first person that’ll betray your tribe is usually the leader while young (read noob) players usually ended up eaten by the bigger tribe, including their ex leaders.

The poor rob other villages. The middle class trade. Main amount of money comes from resources building. It’s just like in real life.

When you’re poor your time is cheap. When you manage 3000 villages, you can’t possibly count on working. So you count on residual income.

Doesn’t mean that working hard is bad. You need that to be “ubber alles” so you got bigger faster and hence can eat smaller players.

Recently I tried to play as independent. My points jump from 18k to 90k. Well, after that I joined a tribe for protection. I got so many attacks and support from my tribe is so small. I actually lost points. Not only that, my new tribes have rules that prevent me from expanding like I used to be.

Hmm… I guess that’s why I love freedom. But once things settle, I can build offensive villages and start robbing others too.

Oh yea, there are 2 types of villages.

I suppose capitalists will just build all defensive villages. So when enemies attack they pay the price. Pure capitalists will be equivalent with guys that just build production building. That means they don’t have troops to raid other villages and will be defenseless against attack from other players. There is no such player exist in tribal wars.

Building pure defense is quite a good strategy. The problem is you can make even more money by robbing others. So it’s a balance game. Resources spent on one will deplete your resources for another.

Of course everything is part of the game.

I learn many hurtful things in life in this game. In normal life I curse and got mad. In game, I did too. But after a while, I realized it’s only a game. I learn instead of holding grudge.

Everyone is indeed psychopaths. The difference is not who are not. The difference is how psychopathic they are and how simmilar they are to each other.

I think every kids should play world of warcraft. They shouldn’t play too much, but they should play a lot.

There are important principles about life that world of warcraft teach:

1. Time management. When you want to complete quests you need to do several quests at once to max out efficiency.

2. Sometimes it’s important to have balance stats. Often it’s far more important to improve one’s talent over another.

I think number 2 need explanation. Say you are a warlock (kind of amazing how we teach our kids nowadays). You use shadow spells. Shadow spells would synchronize with talents that improve shadow damage. It doesn’t make sense to be a shadow warlock and then use gears that improve demon summoning.

In world of warcraft, each classes have a role. Yes you can be a warlock and fight hand to hand. But that would be stupid. You can. But you won’t be the best warlock for your level.

This is a very important principle in life. This is a reason why we evolve into males and females. Males can’t get pregnant. So males must be good at everything else. It doesn’t make sense to have a pregnancy capability and also spend tremenduous amount of time to study engineering, for example.

That’s of course, unless the girl want to attract rich smart engineers. Yes women can be great engineers. But that means they won’t survive well in the gene pool as much as a women that embrace her reproductive talent more.

Many of those beautiful women just grow old and ended up sad for not having kids.

Some people are good at math and some are bad. It’s natural that the bad ones work on sales or soldiers and the good ones learn math. Why study math and then learn sales? Also why study math if you’re not good at it?

You’re not supposed to specialize on everything. Business skills, for example, is useful no matter what you do.

Of course all these will happen naturally under free market. Under central economy, huge amount of resources are spent on people not wanting it under the illusion of equality of talent.

Why do we sign contracts? Because we know, normal people, would just run away with money and goods if he knows he can get away with it. But that’s precisely what psychopaths would do.

So what’s the difference?

If they both do the same thing under the same choice, then they must have the same utility function. What are the main difference between a psychopath’s utility function and most humans’ utility function?

I got burned in bizs several time in my life. Nine out of 10, if I trust a stranger I got burned even over small money like $50. After a while, I sort of presume that everyone is a psychopath and make sure that if they hold onto my money it is toward their best interest to cooperate. So far it works.

But then I was surprised when people think that most humans are not psychopaths. Are all people delusional?

I learn evolutionary psychology. Humans are altruistic only to 1. family 2. reciprocal altruism. (friends)

Number 2 is not really altruism. I do good to others because I want to build a relationship so I can expect better earning for my self.

Unreliability
Frequent lying
Deceitful and manipulative behavior (either goal-oriented or for the delight of the act itself)
Lack of remorse or shame
Antisocial behavior
Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
Incapacity for love
Poverty of general emotions
Loss of insight
Unresponsiveness in personal relations
A frequent need for excitement
An inflated self-worth
An ability to rationalize their behavior
A need for complete power
A need to dominate others

Which of those traits are not common? I mean we see workers have inflated self worth and demand minimum wage. We saw unproductive people demanding government to tax the productive. We saw cradle to grave welfare recipients that keep breeding. We saw religious leaders wanting to prohibit all sex outside marriage.

Which of us are not psychopaths? Which of us are not in business of taking advantage, and dominating others?

Even when you go to a store and buy a milk, you are using your money/power to use the store owners to get what you want, namely milk. Duh. Isn’t that how all economic transaction works?

The last 2 are traits common for all voters. Why do you think people hate free market so much if not because they are power hungry people that want to run our life? Because they actually care about our life and want to protect us from our choice? C’mon.

I have a hard time understanding why people think it’s so abnormal about that psychopath. Many don’t even break the law. They achieve success. Isn’t that what any homo economicus are supposed to do? Isn’t that what we expect from all “good citizen”. Don’t break the law, and that’s it.

Even if they break the laws. Even if they lie and manipulate others, well, what do you expect when laws and societies do not severely punish fraud and keep punishing the productive?

What kind defendant or lawyers, when confronted with crime, quickly tell the truth, nothing but the truth, even if the defendant is innocent? If the law is such that you get convicted based on what the jury believe, of course, you present your case in positive light.

What kind of advertisers do not portray their products in positive light? What percentage of humans would cheat and kill when it’s legal?

We can experiment putting a big poster of the handsome milk man next door, showing six packs, in front of our wives when we mate. Then we can check what percentage of our children somehow look more like him. Alternatively we can also show pics of the young nubile school girls in front of the husbands and see how the school girls’ babies look like.

It only works if what you see actually change your mates. It doesn’t work if you just mate with the same mate and see different things.

I just want to add to Avi answer that is the most correct. You don’t need religion to explain this.

The kind of kids the sheeps will produce depends only on the genes of those sheeps. Those genes depend on the genes of the male sheeps that more successfully mate with the ewes. What kind studs the ewes end up mating with? Now that’s a function of what the ewes actually see when they are selecting mates. In sheeps, the time they select mates is not far from the time they actually mate.

In fact, ewes, like all females, want to max out the number of their grand children. If ewes see too many pattern of the same kind, those ewes will think that the pattern is the trend and be more submissive toward studs with the same pattern.

In fact, if the bible just write when the ewes are selecting mates rather than when the ewes actually mates, I think most scientists would agree. Most people are not aware that ewes, unlike humans, don’t have long courting period, becoming boyfriend or girlfriends first. They pretty much mate right away after sexual selection.

I would like to add another interesting point. It works on humans too, till now 🙂 In fact, till now, most humans would go the extra mile manipulating what other humans see so that their kind looks “better” than the rest. Those who do it better will get selected more and survive better in the gene pool. Humans would also go the xtra mile of degrading or removing the images of those they perceive as superior competitors.

Quite recently Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, get canned for arguing that black women are not attractive. Whether it’s true or not is beyond this (too politically incorrect and I want friends not enemies).

You see, humans are mostly (but not purely) monogamous. If males think that black women are not attractive, it too will decide the kind of kids that will be more common in the next generation.

Many fat women would want to remove super thin photo models from advertising for the exact same reason. When men see thin models future kids will indeed be thinner. That means the fat will go extinct by the way for failing to find a good mate.

What else? Yea feminazis would go the extra mile convincing the world that women are not sex objects. Otherwise, beautiful women that don’t mind becoming sex objects will indeed be the next generation of women. That means ugly feminazis will go extinct.

What else? Yea, single males would go the extra mile convincing everyone that no women could possibly want to share. Poor males would argue that all women that are paid for sex must have done that non consensually. Also we have images that older richer males using money to attract women are perverts. Those images is the reason why the poor actually breed more than the rich. It’s the reason why redistribution of wealth keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s the reason why future kids are poor and violent.

If we want to change that, just put images of nice rich smart jewish bankers as studs paying thrilled hotties for quickies in sitcoms all over the world and see what future kids will look like.

Then what? Dumb blonde jokes. Many entertain that so they can get rid more attractive blonde women from mating market.

What else? Anti semitics would argue jews are inferior. As usual, the truth is usually the opposite of what’s politically correct. Within a few decades there were indeed fewer jews.

So yes, the kind of kids that will be common in the next generation does depend on what everybody see when they’re finding a mate (or decide who to kill). For sheeps the time you find your mate is about the same time you are actually mating. For humans, there are significant delays.

Yes it’s a miracle too. Because it works in ways most people do not know. Perhaps all miracles are just like that. There are hidden science that’s too politically incorrect to be seen. Those science never gets mainstream. So people access that anyway through faith, prayer, etc.

1. It’s too broad. All it says is you have a (set of) utility function(s) that’s equivalent under any linear affine transformation with positive slope. It doesn’t say what’s humans’ typical utility function is. It’s definition of selfish is intuitively misleading. Most utility function that people come up with is simply false.
2. It works in as if basis.Humans are not truly rational. They just behave as if they do. Believing that humans are homo economic us is then like believing that the sun revolves around the earth.
3. It’s not true. Most humans have inconsistent goal or simply don’t have any consistent utility function.

1. Humans are power hungry psychopaths that want to maximize power so they can use it to manipulate others. This explains why we have so many laws against consensual acts. That explains why totally save ganja is illegal, for example, so that politicians can control what you consume. Voters also want to run your life so they support it. In the main article I jokingly called that homo psychopathus.

2. Selfish genes theory. Humans, like all other species want to maximize their reproductive success. Men and women are significantly different that they have totally different strategies to mate. This aspects are absent from most economy classes and not talked about.

3. Humans are hypocrites. Namely that they hide their utility function and the fact that they’re psychopaths so they can be more accepted by societies. People do not openly prohibit ganja and claim they want power. They bullshit first claiming that it’s dangerous. This is the main reason why most humans don’t look like psychopaths even though they behave like ones.

4. Rather than maximizing their self interests, humans actively want suffering for others. This explain all the genocides and voters tendency to ruin economy by demanding governments’ intervention.

While all those may still be part of homo economicus with creative creation of utility functions there are models that may be outside of it.

Humans and all other species, simply repeat what works and avoid what doesn’t. Here, they don’t necessarily have any utility function. I think this is the closest to actual decision making humans do. It’s simple enough and it’s actually more accurate and predictive.

More on that is in evolutionary psychology. It’s as if, as Richard Dawkins said, the genes and the memes, are the one having utility functions, rather than individuals.

I talked to a social liberal. She said she knows personally many politicians. Politicians are not psychopaths, she said. They honestly believe that drugs are bad for you. That’s why they prohibit it. They honestly believe that prostitutes are forced. So that’s why they’re against it.

Also they need votes and that’s what most voters honestly believe.

You know what. Maybe she’s right. Then again, maybe muslim religious leaders honestly believe they honestly save you from hell fire, when they beat ahmadiyah movements up for undermining their authority.

Then again, maybe ugly women honestly believe women are being oppressed when they prohibit prettier women from staring in porn.

Maybe single males actually believe that no women would want to share when they prohibit sex outside life long monogamous marriage. I know. That’s what I actually believed when I were single.

Maybe the thugs that stab you in the back and take your wallet honestly believe that they are performing appendix removal operation for you.

Who care what they believe? If you pay attention that they may be right, you will end up having to argue with millions of millions of total nonsense that somehow justify their acts to you.

Notice that all those strange beliefs follow the same pattern. It justifies acts that believe them. Those are acts that we usually called evil, like using force and fraud or limiting individuals’ freedom. There is a reason why people entertain such beliefs in the first place.

After all, how do they believe all those nonsense in the first place anyway? Simple. Those nonsense reduce the amount of hostility they will get for harming others.

Why shouldn’t they? If I beat people and I said I want money, I would have to face the cops. If I beat people and says it’s God’s will, and somehow the crowd buy it, I get less enemies. It’s toward my best interest to say it’s God’s will. In fact, it probably doesn’t hurt much to actually believe it’s indeed God’s will if that can help me convincing others more. Who knows, many people actually want to see somebody got beaten up. They just need a good fairy tales to justify it.

It’s their best interests to entertain it. It’s not to your best interest to entertain it.

Presuming they are psychopaths and not bother entertaining their nonsense allow you to see clearly what you should do. Do not let those people have power over you. Once people have power over you, it’s game over.

Like most psychopaths, politicians and society make laws criminalizing consensual behavior. It’s simple. They want to enslave you. They want to have something to justify their acts when they they feel like beating you up. That’s what psychopaths do. They blame the victim. And may be they’re right. If you’re a coward that reward their oppression with compliance and benefit nonsense with attention, why shouldn’t people pick on you?

Then again, who says we’re not psychopaths?

I don’t go around robbing people and raping women. Does that mean I am not a psychophath? Who knows? Even if I were, I still wouldn’t go around robbing people and raping chicks. It’s not toward my best interest to do so. I may go to jail and stuff. There are saver ways to get laid and rich.

Imagine if ALL of us believe that we won’t be punished at all for robbing people and raping chicks. How many do you think will do that?

Say 5% would do it. A reasonable number. Imagine if 5% people actually do that and get away with it and every body knows they get away with it. How many would do that the next day? I’d say 100%. In fact, normal people would have gone extinct and everybody would have been a psychopath if “evil” people will just get away with things. The truth is, quite often, evil people does get away with things.

History shows again and again that majority of humans will kill, slaughter, rape, and who knows what when they know they’ll get away with it. Genocide is the norm. Schindler is the exception. Most people are NOT like Schindler. Most are like Genghish Khan. In fact, most people are descendants of people like Genghish Khan. That’s the kind of people that are successful in the gene pool

Yes, like most psychopaths, people would just come up with something to rationalize and justify their acts. Just look what our bible teach: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081109135717AAEZFlL. That’s David, a hero in the bible, killing 100 Philistines just to collect their foreskins. What’s the difference between what he does and what psychopaths would do? Somehow, we just believe David’s justification. And that’s a moral compass most people believe in. Why shouldn’t anyone be psychopaths then? I’d be surprised if anyone is not a psychopath with that kind of moral compass.

David’s dilemma is simple. Usually killing is politically incorrect. Yet his cost and reward function changes. If it’s the philistines, killing is actually rewarding. He can get the king’s daughter. So great. What would any Dave do? Who wouldn’t start collecting those foreskins? Hell, till now many still think it’s actually a good act. If societies approve you for killing people, if killing people is profitable, what would a psychopath and normal people both do? Kill. So what’s the difference?

What about tortures? How many monks love torturing and raping naked women under pretext of driving out demons in the middle ages? What do we call them? Psychopaths? I like to call them majority. In fact, not realizing this is a very psychopathic delusion.

You can’t say someone is honest just because he hasn’t had a chance to steal. Power corrupts, people say. Here is an easier way to see that. People are always corrupt. When they don’t have power, they’re not corrupt for the simple obvious reason they can’t. Once they have the powah, they behave as what they truly are.

You don’t just give your car keys to some strangers and expect that they’ll return the car and pays you rent.

There are 2 ways to analyze most similar situations.

People are not normally psychopaths. However, when they see and know that violent pays so much, they become a psychopaths.

People are inherently psychopaths. They’re just not convinced that robbing and rapping are profitable yet and don’t have the guts to do it yet. Once they know, they do what all psychophats would do.

The difference between 1 and 2 is subtle and may be even mere philosophical. Both will correctly predict what people would do. Both prescribe that we need tough sentences against robbery if we want to deter people from doing it.

To be frank, #2 is simpler, and correctly predict the same act anyway.

In fact, I do not really understand the difference between homo economicus and psychopaths. What’s the real difference anyway? Aren’t we all? Show me some area where large number of people do not act like they are psychopaths. Maybe I can understand it.

In fact, most humans do presume that others are psychopaths. Why do we sign contracts? Why do we have letter of credit? Why not just send the good first and hope that the other guy is not a psychopath and will honor the deal? Because we know that the other side may be a psychopath too and hence, it’s toward our best interest that it’s toward his interest to pay up. Otherwise he won’t pay.

Even if the other side is not a psychopath, we also know that when they see that frauding us is profitable, they too will turn psychopaths and follow the same path.

If even in businesses, where relationship itself is an important social capital, we presume people are psychopaths that we put so many system to ensure that their selfish interests are properly aligned with ours, how much more we should do that in politic?

What would happen if you trust politicians even more than you trust your business partners, namely something more than at all?

History shows again and again what will happen to your wife and kids. Just look:

Who did that? Businessmen? No. Guess again. Politicians supported by the majority of the population. How can people that count on contracts in businesses could suddenly say, that we can trust politicians to decide on what’s best for our children and family?

Simple. Those people, are psychopaths too, just like the majority of voters. They don’t care about fairness. They don’t care about productivity. They just want a reason to justify robbing from the diligent and controlling the productive. The way to do so is to give power to politicians.

Just like an interviewed psychopath once tell how much he loves his wife that he beat up to death, social democrats also entertain a ridiculous delusion. That delusion is that somehow we can trust politicians, and they, are not psychopaths.

Fortunately, politicians are psychopaths too, and we know what’s the cure. Just bribe them.